I made a deposit of $60 cash in person to a teller yesterday, asking before the deposit was made if there would be any delay on when I could use it. The teller told me 'Sometimes it's instant but it won't be over 2 hours max." Before I leave I confirm, that if I go home and wait 2 hours to do my grocery shopping, I'll be fine. Teller says yes.

3 hours later the deposit was still pending (account total $67, available funds $7), so I decided not to risk it and wait. By 6pm that day, I gave up and figured it wasn't going to be there until the next day. It's now 4pm the next day, over 24 hours since I made the deposit, and it's still pending. Still only $7 available.

Waiting isn't the problem, although I would have just bought my groceries with the cash instead of depositing it had i known, but as my bank requires 15 transactions a month to not get charged fees, i wanted to use the account if possible. The problem is, that it's the bank that's notorious for holding deposits and clearing charges before, and the $28 a day (yes per day) overdraft fees. My worry is that they're holding this deposit until the 9.95 monthly fee pulls, which is either tomorrow or 4 days from now, depending on if they do it on the 1st or the day you open the account.

If the fee does pull tomorrow, and the cash is still pending, (and knowing for a fact that they always do debits before credits, no matter how long before you made the deposit) then I will be $3 short, and charged $28 a day until the pending cash posts. If that's only one day, that's still half of my account.

I know this is a bad bank, they're well known for it, but after having my identity stolen 7 years ago, this was the first account I've been able to get since. So switching is not currently an option. I just made sure to learn all the tricks to make sure I didn't get caught by any of them. However by depositing cash, in person, to a teller, early in the day, during bank hours, I didn't think it was possible to get stuck in the whole 'pending deposit' thing for multiple days. I would expect it for a check or even direct deposit, but not for cash.

Anyway, sorry for the long explanation. My question is how long can they hold my cash deposit? Everything I read says it should be the next day at the latest, but that's not the case. I've spent the day reading stories of people having similar things with this bank, and it never getting resolved, but it was always with paychecks not cash. Many people were saying if they knew you had an upcoming debit (scheduled bill, maintenance fee, etc) within 5 days of the deposit, they would make sure not to let the deposit post so they could get the overdraft. Since my monthly fee is coming soon, is this why they aren't letting the cash post? I'm starting to get really nervous. This was my only grocery money for the month, and I can't lose half to this place when I know I did everything I needed to.

Thanks for any help!

In technical terms, cash deposited would be available not later than the business day, following banking day of deposit. Essentially the next day they're open for business. It certainly could be available immediately or in a few hours. But it has to be that next business day, described above.

What can be very confusing for consumers is that banks' definitions of a business day can vary. For example, one bank might consider deposits made at any time the bank is open during the day to be deposited on the same business day. Others may have a cutoff time of 2:00 PM and any deposits accepted after 2:00 PM to be already on the next day's business.

So for the customer above who made a deposit on 1/30. Let's say the deposit was made at 3:00 PM and the bank has a cutoff time of 2:00 PM. The cash deposit would be considered accepted by the bank on 1/31 and the next business day requirement The editor cites would be 2/1. So that deposit Monday afternoon may not be available to be withdrawn until Wednesday morning.

Also, Saturdays and Sundays generally don't count as business days so the same deposit on Friday afternoon at 3:00 would not be available until Tuesday morning.

If you know that you're cutting it close on your account, either keep the cash with you instead of relying on the debit card or find a different bank that has a more customer friendly availability schedule.

15 transactions a month to get the monthly fee waived seems very high. Move your account as soon as you can.

Thanks for the replies, the deposit finally became available Friday the 3rd. Just for details sake, I made the deposit on Monday, the 30th, at between 9:30 and 10:00 am.